Age 11 to 13

Age 11-13 Videos

Overview
Learn more about the Age 11-13 level, see what makes it unique, and look at many of the projects you will finishe over the year.
10 minutes

What Will Your 12-Year-Old Do This Year?

Will he read...

  • Six novels, two poetry collections, a book of Greek myths, and a nonfiction text about the history of science?
  • Ten books about geography, culture, and a wide span of history
  • Seven books that investigate earth science, force and motion, ecology and ecosystems, energy, light, and space

Will he write...

  • journal entries,
  • a variety of poems,
  • an original parable,
  • a personal narrative and personal literary response,
  • chapter summaries,
  • a creative update to a Greek myth, and
  • argumentative, informational, comparison/contrast, and persuasive essays?

Will he explore...

  • a variety of ancient cultures,
  • food webs and food chains,
  • how human eyes work,
  • traditional stories of Aboriginal Australians,
  • how tectonic plates interact,
  • different types of energy, and
  • the geography and culture of modern Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania?

Will he make...

  • a Japanese garden design,
  • a detailed food web,
  • a balloon rocket,
  • a mini-golf game to demonstrate laws of motion,
  • a pinhole camera and periscope,
  • a model of the solar system, and
  • an interactive medieval fair?

He will do all this and more if he uses the Age 11-13 level this year.

Overview

The Moving Beyond the Page Age 11-13 level is the first level in our two-year middle school homeschool curriculum. During these two years, your child will prepare to excel in high school science, social studies, and English. In science he will receive one semester of Earth Science, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. In social studies he will have an appreciation for the course of human civilization for every corner of the globe as well as an understanding of American history and government. The language arts program is a great precursor to high school English as students will do in-depth literature studies and rigorous writing assignments while continuing to improve grammar knowledege and application. When your homeschooler finishes our middle school curriculum, he will be well prepared for high school.

The Age 11-13 level of curriculum is the first year of middle school homeschool curriculum. All units are student directed, and students take responsibility for formulating their own ideas and directing their day. The primary lesson plans are written for your child to read and follow. Our parent overviews include activity descriptions and answer keys for you, and we provide plenty of opportunities for discussion and active involvement in your child's education. This level is usually used for seventh grade, but is often used in sixth grade or eighth grade as well.

Prerequisites

  • Able to read and comprehend novels at a late 7th or 8th grade reading level
  • Able to write multiple paragraphs on a topic
  • Familiar with the five-paragraph essay
  • Usually used by children in the seventh grade.

Using the 11-13 Curriculum

The Age 11-13 level has a flexible design that allows you to tailor a program to meet your needs. You can use the curriculum in each of the following ways:

  • Comprehensive Curriculum
    With Moving Beyond the Page science, social studies, and language arts, all you need to add is math for a full year of homeschooling that will engage and challenge your gifted child.
  • Complete Language Arts Curriculum
    Purchase all 10 literature units and teach your child vocabulary, grammar, writing, spelling, story elements, and figurative language while developing a love of literature.
  • Complete Science Curriculum
    Purchase all 10 science units for a year-long science curriculum.
  • Complete Social Studies Curriculum
    Purchase all 10 social studies units for a year-long social studies curriculum.
  • Supplement Any Existing Curriculum
    Pick a science or social studies topic that piques your child's interest or a book that she will enjoy reading and supplement your current homeschool curriculum. Everything in our program is available to purchase individually.

What's New and Different for Age 11-13

Like our earlier levels, the Age 11-13 level covers science, social studies, and language arts. Unlike earlier levels, the Age 11-13 level gives equal weight to science, social studies, and language arts. In earlier levels, language arts received more of a focus, but in our middle school levels the subjects are all weighted equally.

Each day, students will do three lessons — one in science, one in social studies, and one in language arts. In earlier levels of Moving Beyond the Page, students only did two lessons each day — one in science or social studies and one in language arts. The topic of the language arts unit will tie into either the science or the social studies unit, so children will still be receiving interdisciplinary instruction in the middle school years. This is a hallmark of Moving Beyond the Page that we want to continue through the middle school levels.

The full-year curriculum package contains 10 literature units, 10 science units, and 10 social studies units. All units are broken down into daily lesson plans. Students will move through the units together. When they start unit 1 in language arts, they will also begin unit 1 of science and unit 1 of social studies. The knowledge gained in the science and social studies units are reinforced through the corresponding literature unit.

The list below shows how the science, social studies, and language arts units line up.

Social Studies
Science
Language Arts
Semester 1
Unit 1. Egypt and Mesopotamia
Unit 1. The Hydrosphere
Unit 1. The Pearl
Unit 2. Africa Today
Unit 2. The Atmosphere
Unit 2. A Girl Named Disaster
Unit 3. Australia and Oceania
Unit 3. The Lithosphere
Unit 3. The Hobbit
Unit 4. Ancient Asia
Unit 4. Ecosystems and Ecology
Unit 4. A Single Shard
Unit 5. Asia Today
Unit 5. Earth Cycles and Systems
Unit 5. Independent Study
Semester 2
Unit 1. Greece and Rome
Unit 1. Force and Motion
Unit 1. Greek Myths
Unit 2. The Middle Ages
Unit 2. Light and the Eye
Unit 2. Tales from the Middle Ages
Unit 3. The Age of Discovery
Unit 3. The Solar System
Unit 3. The Prince and the Bard
Unit 4. Elizabethan Europe
Unit 4. Technological Design
Unit 4. Newton at the Center
Unit 5. Modern Europe
Unit 5. Energy
Unit 5. British Poetry

Beyond Standards

Because all lessons are based on state and national standards, your child will learn all of the necessary skills for his age. Your child will continue to be challenged to read and write at a higher level.

Summary of Skills

The links below will take you to the Summary of Skills for each of the concepts that make up the Age 11-13 curriculum. The Summary of Skills is a list of the state and national standards that are covered within Moving Beyond the Page. This list can be useful for your own planning purposes, but it is also quite helpful when submitting required documentation to fulfill state and local reporting requirements.

Age 11-13 Common Core Alignment

Our curriculum has excellent coverage of the Common Core standards for ELA.

Science Kits and Manipulatives

The Age 11-13 curriculum provides a number of hands-on science kits and manipulatives. These kits will provide your child with a hands-on experience that is unparalleled in any homeschool curriculum. With Moving Beyond the Page, hands-on learning is not an afterthought. Not only do we design our curriculum for hands-on learners, we also provide materials to take the hassle out of gathering materials.

11-13 - 1 - S - Science Kit

This science kit contains materials that are used with the first semester science units.

  • black construction paper,
  • blue food coloring,
  • candle,
  • eye droppers,
  • funnel,
  • graduated cylinder,
  • green food coloring,
  • ice cube tray,
  • large clear cups,
  • pebbles,
  • red food coloring, and
  • 28 more items...
11-13 - 2 - S - Science Kit

This science kit contains materials that are used during the second semester science units. The kit only includes materials and does not include any of the curriculum.

  • 2 single pulleys,
  • 3 bar magnets,
  • 3-4' braided rope,
  • balloons,
  • bucket with handle,
  • cork,
  • dynamometer,
  • index cards,
  • jar with lid,
  • marble,
  • measuring tape, and
  • 48 more items...
Beyond Roots II

Beyond Roots II is a deck of cards featuring common Latin, Greek, and English roots and their meanings. Students use the cards to play games to help them learn the roots' meanings. Visit the Beyond Roots webpage to view game rules.

Cannonball Gourd (4 inches)

A cleaned, 4 inch gourd perfect for crafts and student activities.

Leonardo: 16 Art Stickers

One of the great Renaissance painters and a universally acknowledged genius, Leonardo da Vinci used a psychological approach to his art, establishing the idea of the artist as creative thinker rather than a skilled artisan. Sixteen of this master's greatest works are reproduced in miniature for this lovely sticker collection, including Vitruvian Man, Madonna with the Carnation, Bacchus, a detail from The Last Supper, Mona Lisa (La Gioconda), and 11 others.

Parts of Speech Cards

This laminated page of grammar symbols is used in the literature unit Tuck Everlasting.

World History Timeline

This timeline is used in both the Age 10-12 level and then again in the 11-13 level as children study ancient cultures from around the world. It will help to give children a visualization of what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This timeline will be used with the timeline cards for each of the areas studied.

World History Timeline Cards

These cards are used with the World History Timeline. The timeline and timeline cards are required for the social studies units at the 11-13 level.

What Else Do I Need?

The Age 11-13 Full Year Curriculum Package covers science, social studies, and language arts. When purchased with a separate math curriculum, you will have a comprehensive curriculum for your child.

Schedules

Moving Beyond the Page is easy to use without a formal schedule. Just finish one lesson each day from each of the subject areas, and you will finish in about the same time as a traditional school year.

If you prefer to plan your year out more explicitly, you can choose from one of the following schedules. Any of these schedules can also be used for a year-round schedule.



Age 11-13 Curriculum Samples

Our sample center now includes the first two weeks of lessons, for every subject, in every age level. All of the required literature and our incredible manipulative kits are included in our full year packages.